1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of networking. More specifically, the present invention relates to the collection of network traffic data, and the selective analysis of the collected data.
2. Background Information
With advances in integrated circuit, microprocessor, networking and communication technologies, increasing numbers of devices, in particular, digital computing devices, are being networked together. Devices are often first coupled to a local area network, such as an Ethernet based office/home network. In turn, the local area networks are interconnected together through wide area networks, such as SONET networks, ATM networks, Frame Relays, and the like. Of particular importance is the TCP/IP based global inter-networks, Internet.
As a result this trend of increased connectivity, increasing numbers, of applications that are network dependent are being deployed. Examples of these network dependent applications include but are not limited to, email, net based telephony, world wide web and various types of e-commerce. For these applications, success inherently means high volume of network traffic for their implementing servers. To ensure continuing success, quality of service through orderly and efficient handling of the large volume of network traffic has become of paramount importance. Various subject mailers, such as scalability, distributive deployment and caching of contents as well as preventing network misuse have become of great interest to the artisan.
Many of these subject matters rely on the collection and analysis of network traffic data. A number of prior art tools are available to perform such data collection and analyses. An example of such prior art tool is the NetFlow Collector and Analyzer available from CISCO, Inc. of San Jose, Calif. These early generation data collection and analysis tools all suffer from at least a common deficiency in that they lack a flexible and versatile query facility that allows a wide variety of interrogatories to be made against a collection of network traffic data, to facilitate in-depth analysis of the network traffic. Such in-depth analyses are increasingly needed to understand and manage the performance of today and future complex networks.
Thus, a more flexible and versatile methodology is desired.